


Spock's Brain

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Dreams, Episode: s01e02 The Blind Banker, Fix-It, Gen, Prompt Fic, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fixed that for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spock's Brain

John looked at the books on his nightstand and shook his head. Right, back to the library. Too bad they'd arrest him for defacement if he put big red warning stickers on the fronts of the collections.

Sherlock was up (looked like he hadn't been to bed yet) and drinking tea while updating something on his laptop. "I need you to return my CDs when you go to the library today."

By now John didn't ask how Sherlock knew. "And the DVDs. I really don't want to finish watching them now."

"You were the one that checked all of them out. I don't blame you." Sherlock sniffed. "The man should have been arrested for fraud. I don't think I saw him classify a single genuine artifact in two hours."

John rolled his eyes. "The films are about recapturing the feel of pulp adventure tales from the early 1900s, not a documentary about archeological methods of the 1930s. There's a reason it's not called 'The Expedition to Seek the Truth Behind the Biblical Tales of the Ark of the Covenant.' "

"You were in a nostalgic mood?" Sherlock nodded to the small stack of anthologies and novels near the door.

John sighed. "It was – a whim. I was toying with the idea of … well, of writing something set at the turn of the last century. Just for fun. I tried to get a feel for the writing styles." And both the film and his reading material had resulted in an unexpected side effect.

"You are attempting to write in a style that's a touch more imperialistic?"

John huffed out a laugh and tapped his forehead. "Yeah, the writing that went on here last night was just that."

"You dreamed about it." Sherlock cocked his head. "So, what then? Did you travel through 1934 Tunis causing a completely improbable amount of property damage and human assaults to retrieve a biblical artifact from Nazi fortune hunters? Or did sinister foreigners threaten the virtue of white Englishwomen and create elaborate torture mechanisms to hinder your exploration into a colonial holding?"

"Worse," John said. "They came here."

"Sorry, what?"

"Yeah, I dreamed you were fighting in this room with a Bedouin, robes and all, holding a scimitar, while I was buying groceries across town. Don't ask how I knew that – made sense at the time." John dropped his head and his cheeks heated. "Then it got worse."

***

"I highly doubt you'd sell that story in this day and age," was all Sherlock said.

"Not without getting a lot of angry responses from British Asian societies, yeah." John looked at the anthologies he'd checked out, containing collections from the "Golden Age" of pulp fiction – half of them involving evil Chinese (or Asian-appearing aliens) threatening the white heroes and heroines with elaborately sadistic devices. " I hadn't known just how bloody, blatantly racist these things were. Christ, the only thing my subconscious missed was a big final shootout in an opium den."

"Considering that it was the British Empire who forced the opium trade upon China?" Sherlock smiled humourlessly. "A massive case of projection, and an attempt to deflect the crime for which they themselves were guilty."

John looked at his peculiar friend, and at the stack of reading material. "So that's why you happened to know the particulars of this version of pop culture. I wondered."

"Propaganda, in support of a crime so massive that the entire country collaborated." Sherlock returned to his laptop, somber once again. "One for which no justice can truly be brought to bear."

John shook his head and rinsed out his mug at the sink. "Right. Well, I'm off. Want anything else while I'm there?"

"I'll text you." Sherlock looked over as John headed for the door. "Are you still planning to continue your research?"

John waved a dismissive hand, collecting the books. "My life's exciting enough, I'll write about that."

"Optimist." Sherlock returned to the latest puzzle left by his fan.

**Author's Note:**

> For the July 23 2011 prompt (Alternate Finish).


End file.
